Every American citizen has the right to bring a lawsuit against Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and John Morton, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A case in point is that last week ten ICE agents claimed they are not being allowed to perform their professional duties in upholding immigration laws.

The 10 ICE agents stated in their lawsuit that ICE should be deporting all of the estimated 11 million undocumented aliens who live among us rather than just focusing on those who are defined as dangerous to American society. Last year ICE reported it deported 400,000 illegal aliens. According to their complaint, ICE agents should be actively rounding up all aliens instead of focusing on those who have committed serious crimes in the U.S. or have criminal records in other countries.

Their lawsuit was announced a week before the Republican Convention (now delayed today and Tuesday because of Hurricane Isaac). As such the lawsuit appears timed to benefit the Republican campaign against our standing President. In other words, why waited until 90 or so days before the presidential elections when the problem, at least as the agents define it, has been on-going for some time. The lawsuit was, in fact, funded by NumbersUSA, the same folks who brought us all of the anti-immigration state laws, much of which has been ruled unconstitutional.

More to the point, Napolitano has responded to the lawsuit by reminding the public there is simply not enough money allocated by Congress to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants. It is the same political party, the Republicans, who control Congress and who are now bringing the lawsuit against DHS and ICE. Disingenuous is a nice word for this kind of political strategy.

But the greater truth about this lawsuit is that ICE agents are not hired to create and define national policy, rather they are hired to do their jobs as defined by their bosses. So with all due respect, I simply would say this to those ten ICE agents who have brought a lawsuit against their own federal law enforcement agency and DHS: please leave the politics and formation of national immigration policy to the public and their elected representatives.